Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Obama legacy starts to take shape

By now we are all familiar with this powerful moment that happened after President Obama was re-elected.

At 4:13:

Your journey is just beginning. You're just starting. And whatever good we do over the next 4 years will pale in comparison to what you guys end up accomplishing for years and years to come.

It kind of reminds you of what he said in his inaugural speech.

We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

The President clearly has faith in the next generation's ability to carry the torch forward.

Today I came across one pretty important way that's happening. President Obama's former field director, Jeremy Bird, is starting an organization called Battleground Texas.

National Democrats are taking steps to create a large-scale independent group aimed at turning traditionally conservative Texas into a prime electoral battleground, crafting a new initiative to identify and mobilize progressive voters in the rapidly-changing state, strategists familiar with the plans told POLITICO.

The organization, dubbed “Battleground Texas,” plans to engage the state’s rapidly growing Latino population, as well as African-American voters and other Democratic-leaning constituencies that have been underrepresented at the ballot box in recent cycles...

At the center of the effort is Jeremy Bird, formerly the national field director for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign, who was in Austin last week to confer with local Democrats about the project.

In a statement to POLITICO, Bird said the group would be “a grass-roots organization that will make Texas a battleground state by treating it like one.”

Texas currently has 38 electoral votes - second only to California with 55. And it is on track to have 42 after the 2020 census. In addition, Texas is one of the states that is leading the way on reflecting the demographics of the "new America." In the 2010 census, white people became the minority at 45% of the population.

This week Speaker Boehner joined the group of cry-babies saying that President Obama wants to "annihilate the GOP...to shove us into the dustbin of history." Boo-hoo. Its true, the President has drawn the battle lines for the next 4 years of governing. But the cry-babies better be keeping their eye on the long game. If folks like Jeremy Bird that were trained in the "Obama method" are successful in turning Texas into a battleground state - the GOP's days are surely numbered.

7 comments:

YES! As a Texan, I'm so tired of being treated like an ATM and/or phone bank for candidates from other states. It's tiring to hear, "You can donate money to Alan Grayson and call people in swing states, but then please bugger off and secede already."

There are millions of Democrats in Texas, most of them believing that they are alone and need to keep their mouths shut. It's past time to change that.

That's one of the things I admire about our president, he has no time for whining. Let Boehner cry into his shot glass while the liberals remake this country in our image.

Speaking of the liberal takeover, it looks as if the GOP is making themselves unpopular in key swing states. Even if they were to change how electoral votes are allocated, couldn't state Democrats change it before 2016(assuming they win their seats). I'm not losing sleep over Republican corruption. I feel like Ray Charles. "I'm gonna make it do what it do. I'm organizing for action my damn self.